China, once a country that ranked near the bottom of the World Giving Index, has now seen the biggest jump in charitable giving and volunteerism in the world over the last decade, according to the 2024 index. The Charities Aid Foundation, which compiles the index, says that China had a 388 percent increase in the proportion of people who donated money during this period, propelling the country up 49 places to 95th out of 142 countries.
There is still much room for improvement, however. China still lags behind poorer developing countries such as Albania, Mauritius, and Nepal in charitable giving rates, with just 31 percent of Chinese people reporting having donated money in the previous month. In comparison, the rates are 61 percent and 59 percent in the United States and Australia, respectively.
China’s economic woes now threaten to put the brakes on progress achieved thus far. Entering the Year of the Snake, several year-end reports released by Chinese foundations and research firms painted a worrying picture of the state of Chinese philanthropy. Crucially, the downward trend raises questions about the viability of a key plank of the Chinese Communist Party’s “common prosperity” agenda, which emphasizes charitable giving as the “tertiary distribution” to supplement market mechanisms and government taxation in tackling rising income inequality.
The Amity Foundation, for example, one of China’s biggest charitable foundations, estimates that total charitable donations in China amounted to 120 billion renminbi (commonly called the yuan), or around $17 billion, in 2024 – an estimate it called “optimistic” in its year-end review released in January. If accurate, this total would mark a 14.3 percent fall from 2022, the most recent year for which there is official data, and the lowest amount donated in China since 2014.
